When asked if his artwork is similar to that of his son's, artist Murry Handler answers succinctly: "I don't think that there's any similarity."
Yet in spite of the elder Handler's conviction that he and his son, Lowell Handler, produce works that occupy distinctly opposite ends of the artistic spectrum, Through This Lens's new exhibition of both Handlers' work, entitled Father & Son: Creativity Across Two Generations succeeds in bringing to light the subtle similarities between the two artists' styles. Indeed, both artists prefer vastly different mediums. While Lowell works primarily in photorealism, his father creates minimalistic, gestural paintings.
"You might say that Lowell's work is more a matter of explaining reality, and Murray's work is more about expressing emotions," said Roylee Duvall, the gallery director of Through This Lens, a fine arts gallery in Durham.
Each Handler produces art that has proven strong enough to stand on its own. Lowell is the photographer of the Emmy-nominated documentary Twitch & Shout, a film that chronicles his experience coming to age as a photographer with Tourette Syndrome. This exhibition at Through This Lens features documentary-style photographs from his award-winning project The Vanishing: Photographs from a Small Midwestern Town, which chronicles the slow deterioration of Madison, Missouri. Lowell's black and white photographs simultaneously capture and form a commentary on small-town life, as exemplified by his piece "Billboards Along Highway 24." The work portrays a peeling billboard that features two advertisements-one reading "God's Handiwork: Life Begins at Conception" and a second equally large ad for Busch beer. Lowell indicates that the understated criticism in his work is intentional.
"I disbelieve the premise that journalism is objective or should be objective," Lowell said. "Because it is always done from a point of view. And yes, I have a point of view, I'm pointing at the landscape. And in pointing it out, you're putting it in a frame-it's like you're setting it up."
Lowell's work is not limited to landscapes, but also includes portraits of people in the town, which prove to be even more thought-provoking.
"It's like I'll sit there with a camera, and I'll wait and just photograph and photograph. And I'll inevitably just pick one from a few rolls. I'll pick the one that is the most poignant and the most ambiguous," he said.
The results of this process are portraits that successfully convey the distinct personalities of the subjects while simultaneously rendering them larger-than-life, lending a grave importance to the inhabitants of an otherwise unremarkable town.
Like his son, Murry Handler also creates works that, while stylistically opposite, are similarly figurative and strive to capture human emotion. A collection of serigraphic prints made from paintings, Murry's art marks a novel deviation from the gallery's typical photographs. He accurately conveys the gestures and sentiments of his models with a minimum number of brushstrokes, producing simplistic forms that vibrate with deliberate energy.
"I'm a minimalist as a painter. So it's the simplicity that I'm trying to show," Murry said. "And I'm trying to get an emotion, a momentary emotion, so that when you see it you'll understand it just by the attitude and by the posture of the figure. Which I think, in some of them, I actually succeed."
An example is Murry's print "Embrace," which in only five brushstrokes, manages to evoke an intimate image of a couple embracing.
"That's probably the most successful piece that I've ever done," he said.
The elder Handler's ability to depict complex relationships with basic lines is mirrored in his son's photographs, and it is this parallel that is highlighted throughout the exhibition. For example, Murry's print "Mother and Child," is hung directly above Lowell's picture of a mother posing with her daughter, urging the viewer to compare the two works. Similarly, at the front of the gallery, one of Murry's landscapes is displayed between two of Lowells', so that the viewer is immediately confronted with the stylistic discrepancy in the artists' approaches to the same subject matter. Both artists emphasize stark lines in their landscapes, causing these works to most clearly demonstrate what Lowell acknowledges as his father's artistic legacy.
"I find that his use and knowledge of shape and line have influenced me a lot," Lowell said.
The Father & Son exhibition is not only a chance to view aesthetically pleasing works, but it also serves as a unique glimpse of what can remain constant in art across generations.
Father & Son: Creativity Across Two Generations will be showcased through Feb. 12 and is hosted by Through This Lens, located at 303 E. Chapel Hill Street, Durham.
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